CHAPTER TWO
Rose walks over and grabs the handset off the wall. “Hello, Glenhollow Farms.” There’s a pause as she takes in the caller’s response and smiles. “Hey, Amber. What’s going on? I hear you have some big news.” After listening for a few seconds, Rose looks at me. “She says she wants to tell us all at the same time. Go get the other moms.”
I leave the kitchen without a word, walking over to the staircase and resting my hand on the wooden rail as I shout: “Barbara! . . . Carol! We have an important phone call downstairs! It’s Amber!” My heart rate picks up as I try to imagine what my sister is going to say. Is she getting married? Pregnant? Leaving the country and never coming back? Knowing her, it could be anything.
Floorboards creak above my head as the women move to respond to my summons. I go back to the kitchen without them, my feet dragging. I have a really bad feeling about this.
Soon enough, we’re all together standing by the phone. It’s the old-fashioned kind, with a long spiral cord and a rotary dial. We try to fit our five heads over the earpiece so we can hear at the same time, but fail miserably—Sally’s hair tickles my nose so much it makes me sneeze. I back away, giving the rest of them room. Listening to Amber’s news firsthand isn’t going to change anything.
Amber’s voice comes out sounding tiny. “Can you guys hear me? I’m yelling so you can all hear me!”
“Yes, we can hear you,” Carol says, also shouting.
“What’s going on, baby?” Barbara asks. “You’ve got us on pins and needles over here.” She’s grinning broadly, the pride she has in her daughter shining out from her every pore.
“I have really big news,” Amber says. “You guys are going to totally pee your pants.”
I shake my head, my face going warm. This is not good. I don’t want to pee my pants over anything she might say. It’s going to involve the band. The men. The ones she shouldn’t even be talking to. We had an agreement.
“Don’t keep us waiting; tell us,” Rose says.
I search Rose’s face. She doesn’t sound any more excited about this than I am, which makes me feel like I’m not totally alone. A trickle of relief comes in. It’s good to know that not everything has to change.
“Okay, the big news is that the band is going to Japan for two weeks, and they want our moms to go with them!”
I’m not sure I heard her correctly. Japan? “What?” I’m asking anyone who will answer, but everyone is too stunned to respond.
All of a sudden, Barbara stiffens, her eyes opening wide. She speaks in whispered tones. “We’re going to Japan. With the band.”
I hear Amber’s voice off in the distance, but my ears are ringing, making it impossible to understand what she’s saying.
“You guys are going with the band to Japan?” Rose asks. She presses her ear closer to the phone, effectively blocking our moms out. “Are you serious? Red Hot wants to take them along?”
I don’t hear the rest of it. I don’t want to. I move over to Sally’s recipe book and start pulling ingredients out that she’s going to need. My stomach feels like it’s rolling and flipping around inside my abdomen, making me nauseated. Our mothers are being dragged into this fantasy too. First Amber has left, and now they will too. Will Rose go next? Will I be left here all alone?
I look over my shoulder. Our mothers are going crazy, giggling and crying, hooting and hollering. They don’t seem to care that the invitation is coming from Amber and not the actual band members. If it were me, I’d insist on a little more respect than that. But my mothers are not me. Twenty-five years ago they left these men behind for good reason, yet now they want to go running back. I just don’t understand it at all.
I turn away so no one will see my tears. I pull out the flour and then the sugar, placing them on the counter.
“That’s really exciting, Amber. I don’t know if you’re the one who put this together, but thanks. The moms are super thrilled.” Rose sounds grateful, her tone matching her words.
I hold on to the edge of the counter, a wave of dizziness hitting me. Rose doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that these men are snapping their fingers and our mothers are running back like puppies craving attention. She’s happy. She’s okay with this. I want to scream with frustration, but I don’t.
Of course I don’t, because I know I’m letting my emotions get away from me again. I’m out of line. What the heck is wrong with me? Obviously, I need to get a grip on myself. It’s just a two-week trip to Japan. It’s not like my moms are selling the farm and leaving me forever. And besides . . . they’re well into their forties; they should be able to make decisions about how they’re going to live their lives without any fear of me judging them.
I take out the salt and place it on the counter next to the flour. A few deep breaths help take the edge off my runaway emotions. I make a mental note to go out into the trees later, to our meditation area, so I can re-center myself. I hate feeling so off-kilter, but even more so, I hate that it’s those men again who are causing me to feel this way. They don’t deserve to have that kind of power over me. I don’t care what anyone says . . . they are not my fathers.
“When do we leave? What should we pack?” This is Carol who asks these questions—my mom, ever the practical one of the group. She’s always been the take-charge type, and anyone who meets our family of women always assumes she’s Amber’s mom because they’re so alike. But nope . . . she gave birth to me—the girl who’d rather run into the woods than deal with conflict face-to-face.
“Less than a week. Here . . . you take the phone and talk to her yourselves.” I hear footsteps, and then Rose is next to me, her hand resting on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I nod vigorously, trying to convince myself as much as her. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I don’t need my anxiety to upset Rose. She has enough on her plate with all the sick animals in her clinic.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. She’s another woman in this house who’s way too adept at reading my thoughts.
I try to smile away her worry. “Of course not. But if you want to go, you can.” I shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
She looks at me funny. “I have no desire to be anywhere but here. And we can talk about this more later if you want, but I really need to skedaddle back to the clinic. Duty calls.”
“No, I’m fine. I’ll take care of their chores while they’re away; it’s no big deal. We have a couple of our regular, seasonal guests coming soon; they can help out with the laundry and household stuff that the moms usually do.”
Rose leans in to give me a hug. I force myself not to cling to her in response. Instead, I withdraw to pull a wooden spoon from the drawer. Sally will need it to make those cream puffs.
“It’s only temporary,” Rose says. “They’ll be back in no time.”
“Yeah, sure. Of course.” I focus on the recipe book in front of me, squinting my eyes to read the tiny print, hoping I’m being convincing at not caring.
Rose leaves my side and walks back over to the mothers, who are signing off the call. As soon as the phone is back on the cradle, I force myself to turn around and smile. I don’t want to be a downer. This is a really exciting moment for them, something they’ve been dreaming about for over twenty years, probably. I know they’ve been feeling very sad and mixed up with all the things Amber’s been telling them about the band, and this is their chance to get it straightened out and have all of their questions answered. They didn’t get a chance to see the men when they were in New York helping Amber move in with Ty, but I know they wanted to really badly. And when the band was here for a short visit in the summer, none of them had the guts to get into any deep conversations about the choices they made way back when. They deserve this time together, and I’m not going to stand in the way of it.
They’re holding hands, gibbering on and on about what they’re going to pack, who they’re going to hug first, and how they’ll finally be backstage again. And then they start moving en masse through the door without a backward glance.
“What about the cream puffs?” I call out at Sally’s back.
Her hand goes up above her head to wave as she disappears from view. “Sorry! No time for cream puffs. Gotta go to Japan!” They all shriek with laughter, the sound fading as they gain distance. Rose leaves behind them, on her way back to the clinic.
I turn around and start putting the necessary cream puff ingredients into the bowl, crying as I realize there’s really no point in going through these motions when I’m going to be the only one left here to eat the damn things.
The phone rings again, and I turn to glare at it. Amber must have forgotten to give them some details about their trip. I wish I could ignore it and let the call go, but I can’t; it’s my sister, and I’d never abandon her.
“Hello.”
“Hey there, Grumpy.” Amber’s tone makes her sound as excited as our mothers.
“I’m not grumpy. Just . . . tired.” Even though I had a solid eight hours of sleep.
“I wanted to talk to you too, but they hung up the phone.”
“They’re a little excited.”
“I should think so. Can you believe it? I’m finally getting them back together. It’s going to be amazing.”
I don’t want to lie by agreeing or burst her bubble by telling the truth, so I say nothing.
“Anyway, listen . . . I need your help.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll cover everything while they’re gone.”
“No, not that. Something else. I need you to come here.”
“What?” She’s not making sense. She wants to shut the farm down completely? She must be insane. “Come there? Why?”
She laughs. “To visit me. Duh.”
“Oh.” I imagine myself getting on a plane and flying into JFK like she did three months ago, and goose bumps jump out all over my skin. “I can’t, really. It’s going to be way too busy here without them.”
“Rose can help out and so can Harold. I know he’s there.”
I chew my lip. “But there’s the hives and . . .”
“Oh, please . . . Don’t act like you’re doing anything with my hives, you big fat liar. You’d let the honey overflow and the colonies swarm before you went anywhere near them. I get weekly reports from Smitty on the bees, so don’t even try it.”
I sigh. “We have animals, you know. Lots of them. Who’s going to take care of them?”
“Harold and friends. I know for a fact there are at least four tents pitched out there right now. Our visitors love helping with the animals. And besides, it’s not rocket science; you feed ’em, water ’em, and call the vet if there are any injuries. Done.”
I glance out the window and scowl at all eight tents just beyond the window. “Why now?” I ask, trying not to be offended by her casual dismissal of my contribution to our farm’s operations. “Why don’t I wait until they get back from Japan?” If I can stall, it’ll give me enough time to come up with a better excuse. I should have known the bee thing wouldn’t work.
“Because, while the band is gone, this is the one short period of time where I don’t have any work to do.” She switches to her pitiful voice. “I’m all alone in the middle of New York City with no one to share it with.”
“Why don’t you come here, then?”
“Because! I still have to keep up with things. And I have to be here in case there are any emergencies. Shit happens all the time, without warning, and I’m the one who has to straighten it out. I can’t do that long-distance. Besides, don’t you want to see my new life? See my new apartment? It’s huge, and I’m going to be all alone up here.” She sounds pitiful.
I’m surprised by this; to hear her talk, you’d think she has a hundred new friends by now. “Why not Rose?”
“Because I know very well she has at least ten sick animals that need her there at the clinic or they’ll die.”
She has a point. No one will die if I’m not here. And it’s not that I want anyone or anything depending on me for their lives, but it makes me feel very . . . expendable.
“I don’t know . . .” The idea of going to that city literally makes me sick . . . sicker than I was already feeling over the Japan news.
“Pleeeease? Pretty please? I’m so lonely. I miss you. I miss us.”
Her words grab me by the heart and squeeze. I can’t breathe for a few seconds. To imagine that she could be missing me as much as I’m missing her is too much to ignore. “Fine,” I say, sighing loud and long. “When?”
“I already booked you a ticket out in five days. You have a little time to make arrangements.”
Typical Amber. She knew she was going to convince me. Asking me was merely a pretense. “I can’t stay long.”
“Ten days.”
The thought of ten days off the farm makes me panic. “That’s a long time.”
“It’ll fly by. And you’ll love it here, I promise.” She pauses and then talks over my response. “Oh, shit, Ty’s here. I have to go. Kiss, kiss! Love you! See you soon!” And then she’s gone. Just like that, she disappears from my life again.
I hang up the phone and stare at it. I just got railroaded into spending ten days in Manhattan with my sister, who I am now totally convinced is as crazy as a soup sandwich.
I worry what this little trip is going to do to me. Will I be crazy too by the time I return? Will my life get turned upside down and inside out like Amber’s was when she went there? I don’t want anything to change. I like my world to be comfortable and predictable, and this trip represents the opposite of that.
It only took a week for that city to change Amber’s thoughts and plans for her future. I pray the effects of being in Manhattan for ten days won’t be lasting on me. When this trip is over, I want to come back to my life here—taking care of the animals, selling our products weekly at the farmers’ market, and maintaining a home that people love to visit. That’s it. I don’t need a fancy job or fat paycheck to see value in myself. No way, José. New York needs to stay in New York and leave me out of its nonsense. I resolve then and there to make sure nothing about me or my outlook on life changes as a result of my visit with Amber.